Trash Builds Community

Even though it snowed all night, the roads have already been cleared. Several driveways too—those who have signed up for someone to clear them. But as we quickly find out, on a morning like this it is almost better to have uncleared or partially cleared snow on your driveway—the crumbly texture offering at least a semblance of a grip—than the thin and very slippery ice that remains after a plough has pushed the white stuff aside.

And on a morning like this, what’s first on the agenda? Of all things, a visit to the town dump.

Small towns around here are searching for innovative ways to deal with trash, and by that I mean every aspect of trash, from collecting it to disposing of it. Because every aspect of dealing with trash is expensive, this search is a critical one. Landfills get, well, filled; in any case, transporting the trash there is expensive. What would you do?

In Winchester, as in other suburban towns in the area, the citizens have decided to set up a do-it-yourself dump at one end of town. No pickup: they ask families to come there themselves to get rid of their household trash. So this chilly morning, that’s what my host in Winchester, Raj, and I set out to do with his carload of the week’s trash.

I’m half-expecting to arrive at a facility like you would find in urban India, possibly a vast expanse on which garbage is dumped, where flies and stray dogs and ragpickers—well, maybe not ragpickers—abound. Instead it’s a gated enclosure with a sign that tells us the hours it is open, and many more signs that tell us just what to do with our load.

Plastic things here in this large container that is busy compressing them even as we toss them in, but plastic bags there in that other bin. Paper here, but if you have books take them across the street to that small room where you can leave them for others to pick up if they want. Though don’t leave textbooks, those go over at that other place where schools can take a look. Glass in this large container. Organic waste a little further into the facility, on that conveyor belt that drops it into enormous containers that are periodically trucked away; but take yard waste—leaves, branches, and a vast pile of snowed-under Christmas trees fronted by a helpful sign that says "Christmas Trees"—across the road. Metal objects in this enclosure. Computer monitors and TV sets in that one. Still usable things you no longer need but somebody else might—strollers, desks, bikes, chairs—behind that low fence where several such are coated with snow. There are even large containers to take things you want to give to charity—like old clothes to the Salvation Army—with a note explaining how you can claim tax deductions.

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